Delft University of Technology

Circular economy practices in the leather industryA practical step towards sustainable developmentMoktadir, Md Abdul; Ahmadi, Hadi Badri; Sultana, Razia; Zohra, Fatema Tuj; Liou, James J.H.; Rezaei,JafarDOI10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119737Publication date2020Document VersionFinal published versionPublished inJournal of Cleaner Production

Citation (APA)Moktadir, M. A., Ahmadi, H. B., Sultana, R., Zohra, F. T., Liou, J. J. H., & Rezaei, J. (2020). Circulareconomy practices in the leather industry: A practical step towards sustainable development. Journal ofCleaner Production, 251, [119737]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119737

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Journal of Cleaner Production 251 (2020) 119737

Contents lists avai

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ jc lepro

Circular economy practices in the leather industry: A practical steptowards sustainable development

Md. Abdul Moktadir a, Hadi Badri Ahmadi b, Razia Sultana a, Fatema-Tuj- Zohra a,James J.H. Liou b, *, Jafar Rezaei c

a Institute of Leather Engineering and Technology, University of Dhaka, Hazaribagh, Dhaka, 1209, Bangladeshb Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwanc Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, 2628, BX Delft, the Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 30 May 2019Received in revised form22 November 2019Accepted 14 December 2019Available online 16 December 2019

Handling editor: Yutao Wang

Keywords:Circular economyLeather industryWaste managementBest worst methodWaste minimization

* Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: abdulmoktadir2010@gmail.com

(Md.A. Moktadir), hadi@mail.dlut.edu.cn (H.B. Ahmacom (R. Sultana), fatema.ilet@du.ac.bd (F.-T. Zoh(J.J.H. Liou), j.rezaei@tudelft.nl (J. Rezaei).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.1197370959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

a b s t r a c t

The concept of circular economy (CE), a recent popular global business trend, considerably minimizeswaste and environmental pollution. However, studies exploring CE practices in the context of leatherindustry have been scant. To deal with this issue, this paper proposes a decision support framework forevaluating the challenges to CE practices in the context of leather industry. Best worst method, a genericdecision support tool, is employed in the assessment process. The study findings reveal that “lack offinancial support from authorities” is assigned the highest weight in the final ranking results. This in-dicates that the lack of financial facility poses a major challenge to the successful implementation of CEpractices. The findings can assist industrial managers and authorities in taking the required actions toimplement CE practices in the leather industry for the sustainable development of the leather sector.

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The use of global natural resources is essential to meetincreasing demands; however, these resources are limited. Rapidindustrialization has resulted in the excessive exploitation of re-sources (Chen et al., 2019; Achillas, 2018; Gandhi, 2017; Rasoolet al., 2016), leading to resource degradation and environmentalpollution. An eco-friendlymanufacturing framework is essential formaintaining the environment and developing a sustainablemanufacturing system (Gigli et al., 2019; Patra, 2018; Sarkis andDou, 2018). Environmental problems including biodiversity loss,air and water pollution, and resource depletion have detrimentaleffects on Earth’s life support systems (Rockstr€om et al., 2009;Jackson, 2009). Furthermore, social problems including high un-employment, poor working conditions, and poverty adversely

, abdul.moktadir@du.ac.bddi), raziasultana.du31@gmail.ra), jamesjhliou@gmail.com

affect society (Badri Ahmadi et al., 2017a,b; Bai et al., 2019; Banerjeeand Duflo, 2011; Banerjee and Duflo, 2011). Economic issues,including supply risk and problematic ownership structures, resultin financial inconsistencies for corporations and economies (Sachs,2015; Jackson, 2009). Accordingly, switching to more sustainablepractices and production systems is essential (Meadows andRanders, 2012; Markard et al., 2012; Stahel, 2016). The circulareconomy (CE) concept has received considerable attention amongpolicy advocacy groups to address the pressing sustainability issues(Hankammer et al., 2019; Tate et al., 2019; Brennan et al., 2015). CEpractices reduce waste generation and facilitate the reuse of usedproducts, thereby preventing environmental pollution (van EwijkStijn, 2014; Baltrusaitis, 2015; Nadeem et al., 2018; Yap, 2005).One of the major industrial sectors in developing countries isleather industry. Raw materials of leather industry come from rawhides and skins and it is available in Bangladesh. Hence, this sectoris considered as one of the potential beneficial sectors. Moreover,leather industry needs complex chemical operations to convert theraw hides and skins into finished leather. In the process of con-verting, the leather industry pollutes environment greatly, there-fore, it is considered as one of the most polluted industries (Sathishet al., 2019). CE practices are essential for environmental protection

Md.A. Moktadir et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 251 (2020) 1197372

and sustainable manufacturing practices (Sfez et al., 2019). In theleather industry supply chain, eco-friendly leather manufacturingprocesses must be introduced to minimize waste and to reusetannery waste. Accordingly, the potential challenges to CE practicesin the leather industry must be assessed. Such an assessment willhelp industrial managers to formulate strategic policies for theimplementation of CE practices. The literature defines CE as aprocess in which waste products are considered for reuse or arerecycled for further consumption (Ellen MacArthur Foundation,2015; Skene and Murray, 2015). CE is a closed-loop supply chainthat involves the continuous use of materials (Bendikiene et al.,2019; Figge and Thorpe, 2019; Butterworth et al., 2013). Severalresearchers have evaluated CE practices by focusing on various is-sues. Due to limited studies on CE in leather industry, we look at abroader literature as we think the challenges to CE in other in-dustries might have commonalities with what we face in leatherindustry. For example, Geng et al. (2013) measured China’s CEperformance. Evans and Bocken (2013) demonstrated the CEToolkit. Through the Circularity Gap Report published in 2018,Circle Economy (2018) indicated the current state of CE in the globaleconomy. Corrado and Sala (2018) reported the bio economycontribution to CE. Araujo Galv~ao et al. (2018) demonstrated thepotential barriers such as technological, customer, financial andeconomic, policy and regulatory, managerial, performance in-dicators, and social to CE. It is imperative for the leather industry toimplement CE practices, as CE has enormous potential benefits.Therefore, researches on CE in the domain of leather industry maygive an overview of the current condition of the industry to developnew strategies for the CE practices implementation. In the contextof developing countries, it is difficult to implement CE practices, asseveral potential challenges are existing. Hence, this study aims toinvestigate the challenges to CE in the leather industry for thepurpose of sustainable development, in the context of emergingeconomies and developing countries. Specifically, this paper high-lights the following research objectives:

(1) to determine the potential challenges to CE practices, withthe goal of proposing a framework for evaluating thesechallenges in the leather industry context;

(2) to determine the relative importance of the challenges to CEpractices in the leather industry;

To achieve the research objectives, a literature review is initiallyconducted to determine the general CE challenges in different in-dustries including leather industry. These challenges are thensubjected to several rounds of reviews by industrial managers topropose a comprehensive evaluation framework to address the CEchallenges. The overall contributions of this study can be summa-rized as follows:

(1) A multi-criteria framework for evaluating the challenges toCE practices in the leather industry in an emerging economycontext is proposed.

(2) The BWM, a novel multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)method, is employed to analysis and identify the importanceof potential challenges in an empirical setting.

(3) A real world application of the proposed model is shown in adeveloping country context.

The remaining of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2discusses CE, waste generation in the leather industry, existingwork on CE, and research gaps. Section 3 provides the researchdesign and methodology. Section 4 presents an example of theapplication of the proposed research design. Section 5 presents thediscussion and managerial implications. Finally, Section 6 presents

the conclusions.

2. Literature review

This section first focuses on the CE concept and examines wastegeneration in the leather industry. Next, this section presents theexisting studies on CE and identifies the research gaps.

2.1. Circular economy

CE is a business concept that involves the further use of mate-rials in a restorative and regenerative manner, thereby extendingthe utility and value of thematerials (Gusmerotti et al., 2019; Rajputand Singh, 2019; Larsson, 2018; Sariatli, 2017). CE minimizes ma-terial consumption and reduces waste by generating value of theproducts. The CE concept resembles a closed-loop value chain inwhich waste materials are reused for consumption. According toPomponi and Moncaster (2017), value chains are of two types:linear and closed-loop. In linear value chain (Govindan et al., 2020;Sehnem et al., 2019), the raw materials are collected from varioussources and thenmanufactured. During themanufacturing process,a large number of wastes are generated. After manufacturing, thefinished products are ready for distribution to different channelsand that time logistics wastes are generated. Different types ofpackaging waste are produced during the subsequent sales andretails activities. Finally, after consumptions of finished products,huge amounts of usage wastes are formed. In the linearmanufacturing system, these generated wastes are not consideredfor remanufacturing. In the circular economy context, the gener-ated wastes from different activities of supply chains are collectedfrom proper channels and returned to a special remanufacturingunit for further reuse. To incorporate the CE practices in supplychains, initially, the “3R” principles were introduced to reduce,reuse and recycle of the energy and materials consumptions(Huang et al., 2018;Wichai-utcha and Chavalparit, 2019). Currently,to improve the supply chain activities, 6R policies are introduced toliterature, where additional three dimensions such as recover,redesign and remanufacture are considered (Ghisellini and Ulgiati,2020). This 6R policy has become popular in developed countriesand better results of the supply chains practices have been ach-ieved. In addition, there are several concepts of CE that are existingin the literature, such as cradle to cradle (C2C) (Peterson, 2004),reverse logistics (Lu et al., 2020), closed loop supply chain(Mohtashami et al., 2020) and blue economy (Pauli, 2011). In C2Cconcept, the main focus is to minimize the environmental degra-dation via producing socially responsible and more sustainablemanufacturing processes, distribution and disposal practices. Inreverse logistics system, the take back products are collected to adisposal point to minimize the waste as well as to improve thesustainability of the supply chains (Rezaei, 2015a,b). It is very closeto CE practices where the take, back products are used to reman-ufacture or refurbish. Closed loop supply chain is the circular designof supply chains. The basic idea of closed loop supply chain is quiteclose to the idea of CE. In closed loop supply chain, basically therecycling and the reuse of the products are considered for closingthe loop. It focuses on the importance of coordination mechanismand governance to improve the circular system. It consists of for-ward and backward supply chain to maximize the profit of an or-ganization. Lastly, the concept of blue economy is a philosophywhere local environment and ecological features are focused forsustainable development of a nation economy.

The CE model has become popular for industries to build asustainable business framework (Koszewska, 2018). One of the keyelements for creating a more sustainable society is the CE concept(UNEP, 2006), with considerable implications for social well-being

Md.A. Moktadir et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 251 (2020) 119737 3

(Geng et al., 2016) and eco-innovation development (de Jesus andMendonca, 2018; Genovese et al., 2017). In the microeconomiccontext, CE business models indicate potential winewin opportu-nities for companies (Tse et al., 2016; Esposito et al., 2017; Jabbouret al., 2017; Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2017). The CE concept hasgradually developed (Winans et al., 2017) from the conventionallinear supply chain and has influenced numerous existing pro-duction systems (Korhonen et al., 2018; Stahel, 2016; Lieder andRashid, 2016). Ghisellini et al. (2016) argued that the limitation ofnatural resources is the main foundational philosophy of the CEconcept. This concept involves the use of post utilization products,resources, and packaging to create additional value through theexchange of linear flows of material and energy for manufacturingand consumption in closed-loop networks (Kirchherr et al., 2017;Moktadir et al., 2018c; Yuan et al., 2006). Corporations haveadopted disruptive technologies based on reuse, repair, upgrada-tion, and capacity sharing (Moktadir et al., 2018c; Esposito et al.,2017). The CE concept is a solution for coordinating ambitions foreconomic gain and environmental conservation (Sassanelli et al.,2019; Geng et al., 2012; Park et al., 2010). CE is an economic sys-tem based on economic models (Kirchherr et al., 2018; Murrayet al., 2017) and replaces the “end of life” concept with proced-ures that promote the reuse, reduction, and recycling of materialsthroughout the production and consumption processes (D’Amatoet al., 2017; Shahbazi et al., 2016). Numerous business activistsand policymakers have demonstrated their support for the CEconcept (European Commission, 2008; Lacy and Rutqvist, 2016).However, research on CE is still in its early implementation phases(Ghisellini et al., 2016; Liu and Bai, 2014). The CE concept as a neweconomic concept was first adopted by China (de Sousa Jabbouret al., 2018). Within the CE concept, the linear sequence of “take-emakeeconsume,” which is the conventional flow of traditionalbusiness models, is transformed by the new sequence of “take-emakeeconsumeedispose” (Lieder and Rashid, 2016; Urbinatiet al., 2017). Scientific disciplines such as engineering, ecologicaleconomics, industrial ecosystems, cleaner production, and productservice systems have developed the CE concept (Lifset and Graedel,2002; Ayres, 1999; Chertow and Ehrenfeld, 2012; Ghisellini et al.,2016; Lieder and Rashid, 2016; Tukker, 2015; Welford, 1998).Murray et al. (2017) revealed that the integration of the socialdimension of sustainability into the CE concept has received lessconsideration. Such limitations must be efficiently adressed forincreasing the attractiveness of the CE concept to firms. CE classifieseconomic systems, positively affecting the environment and socialdimensions (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017).

2.2. Waste generation in the leather industry

Leather is a valuable by-product of the meat industry (Swanson,2018). The leather industry considerably contributes to foreignexchange, but negatively affects the environment. Closed-loopmanufacturing practices may considerably minimize the negativeenvironmental effects (Hidalgo et al., 2019; Hu et al., 2011). In theexisting supply chain of leather manufacturing companies,considerable waste is generated during the production process. Thelinear manufacturing system does not consider waste disposal forfurther use. The closed-loop manufacturing system minimizeswaste and protects the environment.

Fig. 1 depicts waste generation in leather manufacturing. Thefigure indicates that large quantities of waste are generated afterthe chemical processes involved in leathermanufacturing. After thetanning process, from 1100 kg of raw hides and skins and 1462 kg ofother tanning inputs, 1986 kg of other tanning waste is produced inaddition to 99 kg of shaving waste, 20 kg of trimming waste, and108 kg of unusable splits (Tegan Pringle, 2017). Furthermore, after

the post-tanning process of grain leather, from 262 kg of wet bluegrain leather and 4464 kg of other tanning inputs, only 190 kg ofgrain leather crust is produced. During the conversion of wet bluegrain leather to crust leather, 4533 kg of other post tanning outputand 3 kg of leather fibers are generated. Similarly, after the post-tanning process of split leather, from 88 kg of wet split leatherand 1516 kg of post-tanning inputs, only 59 kg of split leather crustand 4 kg of leather fibers along with 1541 kg of other post-tanningwaste are generated.

From the conversion of grain leather crust to finished crustleather, 190 kg of grain leather crust and 74 kg of other finishinginputs are used to produce only 195 kg of finished crust leather. Inthis process, 4 kg of grain leather offcuts, 1 kg of buffing dust waste,and 64 kg of other finishing output waste are generated. Similarly,from the conversion of split leather crust to finished split leather,59 kg of split leather crust and 26 kg of finishing inputs are usedand 24 kg of finishing waste and 1 kg of split leather offcuts aregenerated.

Finally, from 195 kg of finished crust leather and 60 kg offinished split leather, 152 kg of cutting waste is produced. After thedistribution of leather goods, from 103 kg of leather goods, un-known similar weight of split of waste is generated. It is clear fromthe data that huge amount of waste is generated from the tanningprocess. In the current linear leather manufacturing process inBangladesh, various types of waste is generated like trimmedwasteleather, shaving dust, solid waste, tannery effluent. The existingleathermanufacturing processes do not consider any optimal wasterecovery techniques and policy for CE implementation. In addition,during the production of various types of leather goods and leatherfootwear, numerous amount of waste like trimmed leather, shavingdust, trimmed lining materials, packaging materials, various typesof finishing agents, polymeric materials are generated. The existinglinear manufacturing practices are responsible for polluting theenvironment and Bangladeshi leather industry reputation. In thecurrent practices, a large proportion of the total waste generatedfrom tanning process is still sent to landfill with no material orenergy recovery. Hence, converting linear to closed loopmanufacturing process helps to achieve resource efficiency byminimizing waste throughout the leather supply chains. The cir-cular economy practice ensures that all wastes will be collected viaproper channels and returned to the remanufacturing unit, to bereused. The closed loop leather processing may be implemented byconsidering 6R (Reduction, Reuse, Recycling, Recover, Redesign andRemanufacture) policy throughout the leather supply chains. Theprocess of closed loop leather processing system can be explainedaccording to the following Fig. 1.

2.3. An overview of the existing work on circular economy

Several researchers have focused on the CE concept as a meansto minimize waste and protect the environment. Moktadir et al.,2018c examined the determinants of sustainable manufacturingpractices in the leather industry in Bangladesh. Geissdoerfer et al.(2018) proposed a framework to combine circular businessmodels with circular supply chain management (SCM) to achievesustainable development. Kazancoglu et al. (2018) proposed aframework for green SCM performance assessment based on the CEapproach. García-Barrag�an et al. (2019) utilized a mathematicalapproach to define and measure CE. Gaustad et al. (2018) examinedthe application of CE principles to critical and strategic materialdisruptions. Leising et al. (2018) used three case studies to developa framework for supply chain collaboration in circular buildings.Principato et al. (2019) investigated food loss and waste in the pastasupply chain based on the CE approach. In addition, Gupta et al.(2018) used big data to develop a stakeholder approach to CE to

Fig. 1. Waste generated across the lifecycle of leather and leather products (adopted from the study by Tegan Pringle, 2017).

Md.A. Moktadir et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 251 (2020) 1197374

make decisions that can assist the implementation of sustainablebusiness practices based on the CE concept. Kirchherr et al. (2018)used surveys and interviews to analyze the barriers to CE in thecontext of the European Union. They found that cultural barriers arethe main CE barriers faced by businesses and policymakers.Kuzmina et al. (2019) developed five scenarios to investigate thefast-moving customer goods industry within the CE context.

Ormazabal et al. (2018) examined the barriers and opportunities ofCE implementation in Spanish small and medium enterprises.

2.4. Research gaps

Kazancoglu et al. (2018) indicated that research on CE is still inits early implementation phases and requires much more

Md.A. Moktadir et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 251 (2020) 119737 5

investigation and empirical analysis, particularly in emergingeconomies and developing nations. Moreover, Moktadir et al.(2018c) argued that the leather industry in Bangladesh has nega-tive environmental and social image because of large quantities ofwaste and material usage, which can be addressed and consider-ably reduced through the adoption and implementation of the CEconcept. Although several studies have investigated the challengesto CE practices, according to the literature review and previousstudies presented in Section 2.3, none of those works explore thechallenges to CE practices in the context of the leather industry. Inaddition, some of the authors already worked on leather industrydomain for CE model but neglected to investigate impact of CEchallenges. As an example, Hu et al. (2011) worked on the CEmodelfor leather industry and explained broadly the different tanneryoperation for reduce, reuse, recycle and recover of tannery effluent.Authors showed the treatment approaches of various tannery ef-fluents for providing guidance for the sustainable development ofleather industry. Authors neglected to identify the challenges for CEimplementation which is imperative for policy development for CEimplementation. Marques et al. (2017) investigated the wastegenerated in the Portuguese footwear companies and confirmedthat waste produced from footwear industry is aggressive forenvironment. Authors argued that new approach of design princi-ples including 4R policies for greening the manufacturing practicesmay help to achieve competitive advantages. Mohamed and Rachid(2015) tried to underscore the importance of implementing CEmodel in the tannery industry for the achievement of sustainabledevelopment goal. Authors suggested that treatment technologieslike cleaner technology may help tannery industry to preserve thenatural environment along with minimizing huge economic losses.Authors urged that policy is an important issue to overcome thecurrent situation of the developing countries tannery industry.Pringle et al. (2016) proposed an economic decision-making modelfor recycling solution of leather waste. Authors tried to investigatethe opportunities and challenges of CE implementation in thecontext of leather industry and showed the various recycling op-tions of leather waste management. To fill this gap, this study in-vestigates the challenges to CE practices, particularly focusing onthe leather industry, in a developing nation context. Table 1 pre-sents the potential challenges to CE practices, as identified throughthe literature review. For determination of the challenges (seeTable 1) the following criteria were taken into account:

Table 1Potential challenges to CE practices implementation.

Challenges to CE Author(s)

Lack of technological advancement Adams et al. (2017b), TuraLack of financial supports from authorities Paradowska (2017), Mokta

(2018)Absent of strong legislation towards CE Moktadir et al., 2018c, Li aComplexity in reconfiguring of liner system to circular

systemBechtel et al. (2013), Leino

Lack of reverse logistics facility Adams et al., 2017; van BuLack of communication framework Antikainen et al. (2018), YLacking standardization of recycled products Vermunt et al. (2019), vanLack of awareness of CE Moktadir et al., 2018c, RizLack of pressure from social community Melece (2016), Yang (2016Lack of accessibility on real data Pheifer (2017), Xue et al. (Limited willingness to collaborate in the value chain Mont et al. (2017), BockenLack of environment management commitment Tukker (2015), Ghisellini eLack of waste management facility Hu et al. (2011), MohamedLack of guidelines for quality of refurbishment products Benton and Hazell (2013),Lack of facility of circular procurement Matsumoto et al. (2016), KUncertainty of return and profit Despeisse et al. (2015), TuDeficient firms framework to adopt CE practices Matsumoto et al. (2016), WLack of market mechanisms for recovery Bilitewski (2012), Bonciu (

(1) We took into consideration several scientific articles on cir-cular economy. Some keywords such as ‘drivers/challenges/key factors/enablers’ of circular economy for searchingrelevant papers on the various scholarly databases wereemployed.

(2) Scholarly databases including Science Direct, Scopus, GoogleScholar, Emerald, Springer, Wiley, Taylor and Francis wereused to search the above mentioned keywords. All collectedscientific articles were written in English, peer-reviewed andsuitable for the purpose of the current study. The next sec-tion describes the research design and methodology.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research design

A multiple case study design is followed to achieve the researchobjectives. Specifically, industrial managers and experts evaluatethe challenges to CE practices in the leather sector of Bangladesh.According to Table 1, evaluating the challenges to CE practices is amulti-criteria problem; the MCDA technique can help to solve suchproblems. Several MCDAmethods such as AHP, ANP and TOPSIS areavailable (refer to the study by Triantaphyllou, 2000; Rezaei, 2018).The current study applies the BWM, an MCDA method that has notbeen previously utilized in this area. BWM is employed to evaluatethe proposed evaluation framework and rank the CE challengesaccording to their relative importance weights. The next sub-section describes the BWM.

3.2. Best worst method

The BWM proposed by Rezaei (2015a,b, 2016) is a powerful andsimple MCDA method based on pairwise comparison. The BWMrequires less pairwise comparison data and produces moreconsistent results compared to other methods (Rezaei, 2015a,b).Several applications of the BWM indicate the popularity androbustness of this method, including social sustainability assess-ment, supply chain sustainability innovation, transportation, andsupplier selection (Badri Ahmadi et al., 2017b; Kusi-Sarpong et al.,2018; Bai et al., 2019). The BWM (Rezaei, 2015a,b; 2016) is struc-tured according to the following steps:

et al. (2019), Mentink (2014), Winans et al.(2017)dir et al., 2018c, Winans et al. (2017), Venkata Mohan et al. (2016), Heyes et al.

nd Yu (2011), Borrello et al. (2017)et al.(2016), Ormazabal et al.(2018)

ren et al., 2016; Zeqiang and Wenming, 2006, Esposito et al.(2018)ang (2016), Ghisellini et al. (2018), Vermunt et al. (2019)Buren et al. (2016), Araujo Galv~ao et al. (2018), Ritz�en and €Olundh (2017)os et al. (2015), Ritz�en and €Olundh (2017), Govindan and Hasanagic (2018)), Geng et al. (2012)2010), Pan et al. (2015), Huang et al. (2018), Tura et al. (2019)et al.(2016), Winans et al. (2017), Urbinati et al. (2017)t al. (2016), Ili�c and Nikoli�c (2016)and Rachid (2015), Sathish et al. (2019), Zhu et al. (2010), Zhu et al. (2011)Chamberlin and Boks (2018), Masi et al. (2018)irchherr et al. (2018), Geng and Doberstein (2008)ra et al. (2019)halen et al. (2018)

2014), Rizos et al. (2015), Poppelaars (2014), Zhu et al. (2015), Jagger (2016)

Md.A. Moktadir et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 251 (2020) 1197376

Step 1: Identification of decision attributes by the decision-makers (experts)

The attributes are finalized and denoted as follows. fc1;c2;:::;cng

Step 2: Identification of the best attribute and worst attribute bythe decision-makers (experts).Step 3: Construction of best-to-others (BO) vector using a 9-point scale by the decision-makers (experts).

In this step, a score of 1 indicates equal preference and a score of9 indicates extreme preference. The BO vector is presented asfollows:

AB ¼ ðaB1; aB2; : : : ; aBnÞ

Where, aBjdenotes the preference of the best attribute B overattribute j.

Step 4: Construction of others-to-worst (OW) vector using a 9-point scale by decision-makers (experts).

In this step, a score of 1 indicates equal preference and a score of9 indicates extreme preference. The OW vector is presented asfollows:

AW ¼ ða1W ; a2W ; : : :; anWÞ

Where, ajWdenotes the preference of the attribute j over the worstattribute W.

Step 5: Determination of optimal weights ðw*1;w

*2; :::;w

*nÞ of the

attributes.

In this step, optimal weights of the attributes are determinedsuch, for all j, that the maximum absolute differences of the pair-wise comparisons from their associated weight ratios areminimized.

A min-max model is then formulated as follows:

min maxj�jwB � aBjwj

��;��wj � ajWwW

���

subject to

X

j

wj ¼1 (1)

wj � 0 for all j.Model (1) can be converted to the following linear programming

problem and is presented as follows:min. xL

subject to,

jwB � aBjwj�� � xL for all j

��wj � ajWwW�� � xL for all j

wj � 0 for all j

X

j

wj ¼1 (2)

for all j.Through the use of Excel Solver (www.bestworstmethod.com),

model (2) is solved and the optimal weights ðw*1;w

*2; :::;w

*nÞand xL*

are acquired. The notation xL* indicates the comparison system’sconsistency. A lower value of xL* means higher consistency in the

comparison system; accordingly, the comparisons are morereliable.

4. A real-world application

Bangladesh is in the early phases of the implementation ofsustainable manufacturing practices as well as the CE concept(Moktadir et al., 2018c). The proposed decision support tool is usedto assess the challenges to CE practices in the leather industry inBangladesh. The leather industry is one of the crucial industrialdomains in Bangladesh. The leather industry considerably con-tributes to economic growth and is the second highest contributorof foreign exchange. This industrywas established in 1970, as one ofthe largest industries in Bangladesh. Based on the report of TextileToday dated December 17, 2018 (Textile Today Report, 2018),Bangladesh houses 161 companies in the leather industry. Therecent report of export promotion bureau (EPB) for JulyeNov(2017e2018) has shown that that export performance was 626.57million USD (LFMEAB Report, 2019). The data indicates that theannual economic contribution of the leather industry has beennoteworthy (Moktadir et al., 2018a, 2018b, 2018c). Moreover, theBangladeshi leather industry meets 10% of the world’s leather de-mand (Moktadir et al., 2018c). Beside this potentially of the leatherindustry, Bangladesh ranks 179 among the 180 countries in theworld in the 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI Report,2018) which is alarming for the Bangladeshi leather industry.These facts indicate that the leather industry in Bangladesh hasconsiderable scope to keep up with the world market by imple-menting CE practices. CE practices can help capture global businesstrends and save the environment and society. In addition, imple-menting CE policies will help to build a strong brand value andstrengthen relationships with international buyers. In this study,six case companies and six experts from major Bangladeshi leathercompanies are invited to evaluate the challenges to CE practices.These experts are very knowledgeable in the industry. There areseveral studies in literature that have employed a small number ofexperts (e.g. Dou et al., 2014; Gupta and Barua, 2018), as in contrastto data-based methodologies, in expert-based methodologies wecan rely on a small sample of experts (Rezaei et al., 2012). Hence, weproceeded with this number of managers, because we consider itsufficient for achieving reliable results. The experts are selectedfrom top management, supply chain, logistics, technical, planning,andmarketing departments. The experts possess at least 10 years ofactive work experience in their respective fields and have soundknowledge of environmental management systems. Table 2 pre-sents the profiles of the experts and companies.

As can be seen from Table 2, the experts participated in thisstudy represent a significant (more than 80%) part of the industry(all together produce 325 million square feet of leather out of thetotal annual production rate which is approximately 400 millionsquare feet of leather). The proposed method is employed in a real-life example and can be found in the next subsection.

4.1. Identification of decision attributes

This section discusses the framework development process ofthe study. At the first stage, a comprehensive literature review isconducted and 18 potential challenges to CE practices are deter-mined (Table 1). Subsequently, a survey with the mentioned chal-lenges is designed and presented to each of the six managers fortheir review at different times. They were asked to identify chal-lenges relevant to their firm supply chains by indicating “Yes” asrelevant or accept, and “No” as irrelevant or reject. They were alsoasked to suggest any more relevant challenges to leather industry,according to their experience and knowledge. The research team

Table 2Profile of assigned experts for evaluating challenges to CE practices.

Case companies with their annual production rate (Total annual production rate is approximately 400million square feet of leather)

Role of assigned experts in the leathersupply chain

Years of workingexperience

L (120 million square feet of leather) Chief executive officer (CEO) 20 yearsM (85 million square feet of leather) Supply chain manager (SCM) 13 yearsO (45 million square feet of leather) Logistics manager (LM) 11 yearsP (40 million square feet of leather) Technical manager (TM) 15 yearsQ (20 million square feet of leather) Planning executive (PE) 10 yearsR (15 million square feet of leather) Marketing executive (ME) 12 years

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agrees with the experts that the challenges approved by at least fiveexperts would be considered in the next round of review. Oneadditional challenge (Lack of long-term strategic goals) is suggestedby one of the managers. In total, four rounds of interviews arecarried out to refine the set of challenges. Finally, eight challengesare selected and included in the final list. Table 3 presents theevaluation framework of the study. Several studies in the literaturehave employed screening approach, and used experts input for thequalification purpose, i.e. whether a particular criterion should beincluded or not for the evaluation phase (see, for instance, Ahmadiet al., 2017b and Kusi Sarpong et al., 2018).

4.2. Identification of the best and the worst attribute

In this phase, using Step 2 of the BWM, the decision-makers(experts) mark the most critical (best) and the least critical(worst) challenges without any comparison. Table 4 presents themarked best and worst challenges by different decision-makers.

4.3. Best-to-others and others-to-worst attributes

In this phase, using a 9-point scale (see Table 5), the decision-makers construct the BO and OW vectors. The BO and OW vec-tors are presented in Table 6. Moreover, Table 7 demonstrates theweights of the challenges for each of six experts. The optimalattribute weights are simply computed using Excel Solver, fulfillingmodel (2), as indicated in Table 8.

4.4. Calculating the optimal attribute weights

In the final phase, the optimal weight for each challenge iscomputed which is shown in Table 7, and the average weight ofeach challenges obtained by the assigned six experts is presented inTable 8. All the consistency ratios (xL*) are close to zero; therefore,

Table 3Final list of challenges to CE practices in the leather industry.

Challenges to CE Notation Explanation

Lack of technologicaladvancement

Cha1 CE practices need advanced technological facposes a major challenge to the implementati

Lack of financial support fromauthorities

Cha2 To develop and implement the CE policy, budsupply chain.

Absence of strong legislationtoward CE

Cha3 Strong legislation facilities may induce indussociety. Absence of strong legislation toward

Lack of reverse logisticsfacilities

Cha4 Reverse logistics facility is a prerequisite for CEfor reuse. Therefore, CE implementation is no

Lack of communicationplatforms

Cha5 Communication among manufacturers, buyerimplementation of CE practices, strong comm

Lack of awareness of CE Cha6 Manufacturers must possess accurate knowleindustry do not possess adequate knowledge

Lack of pressure from socialcommunity

Cha7 A noble society may emphasize the implemecountries, the people are not aware of sustain

Lack of long-term strategicgoals

Cha8 Manufacturers should focus on building strategoals through the practice of current busines

the comparisons are highly consistent and reliable. The ranking ofeach challenge is based on the final average weights of the chal-lenges. Moreover, the graphical representation of the final weightof each challenge is provided in Fig. 2.

5. Discussion and managerial implications

The findings reveal that “lack of financial support from author-ities (Cha2)”, with the weight of 0.2023, is assigned the highestranking, indicating a major challenge to CE implementation. In theleather industry, waste generated from the tannery operationsneeds proper treatment channel for greening the workforce andenvironment. For the reduction, reuse, recycling, recover, redesignand remanufacture of waste, huge investment is required. Also,policy development and network design for CE implementationneed extra investment for the leather processing companies.Therefore, the financial support from the authorities may help toimplement the CE policy for environmental protection and capacitybuilding. Financial support can motivate industrial decision-makers to consider the required actions for the initiation of theCE policy. According to a study by Moktadir et al. (2018c), financialsupport can help motivate industrial decision-makers to imple-ment sustainablemanufacturing and circular economy practices forleather companies. A recent study conducted by Gusmerotti et al.(2019) showed that economic driver is considerable for theimplementation of circular economy in the context ofmanufacturing firms. It is confirmed from the study conducted byPringle et al. (2016) that financial support is essential for the leatherindustry because the industry involves complex technical opera-tions for the recycling of waste materials produced from end-use orproduction process. Hu et al. (2011) urged that leather industryneeds circular economy model for the utilization of tannery waste,which will help to achieve sustainability of supply chains. Someresearches highlighted that eco-design is mandatory to minimize

ilities to reuse, recycle, and minimize waste. Lack of technological advancementon of CE practices in the leather industry.get expansion is crucial. Currently, financial facilities do not exist in the leather

trial decision-makers to implement CE practices to protect the environment andCE implementation currently poses a major challenge in the current.implementation because of in CE practices, it is necessary to collect used productst possible without appropriate reverse logistics facilities.s and sellers, and consumers is crucial for CE implementation. For the effectiveunication platforms framework in supply chains is essential.dge of CE and world business trends. Currently, decision-makers of the leatherof CE practices.ntation of CE practices for environmental sustainability. However, in developingable manufacturing practices and the CE concept.gic goals for the sustainable development of the leather sector. Long-term strategics trends are crucial for sustainable development.

Table 4Identification of the best and worst challenges.

Challenges to CE The most important (Best) challengemarked by decision-makers

The least important (Worst) challengemarked by decision- makers

Lack of technological advancement (Cha1) SCM, LMLack of financial supports from authorities (Cha2) CEO,TMAbsent of strong legislation towards CE (Cha3) MELack of reverse logistics facility (Cha4) SCM, LMLack of communication framework (Cha5)Lack of awareness of CE (Cha6) PELack of pressure from social community (Cha7) CEO,TM, MELack of long term strategic goals (Cha8) PE

Table 5Evaluation scale for BWM.

Equallyimportant

Equal to moderatelymore important

ModeratelyMoreimportant

Moderately tostrongly Moreimportant

StronglyMoreimportant

Strongly to verystrongly moreimportant

Very stronglymore important

Very strongly toextremely Moreimportant

Extremelymoreimportant

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Table 6Comparison vector obtained through feedback from decision-makers.

Decision Makers Challenges to CE

Cha1 Cha2 Cha3 Cha4 Cha5 Cha6 Cha7 Cha8

CEO Best (Cha2) 7 1 3 6 4 5 9 3Worst (Cha7) 3 9 5 3 6 2 1 6

SCM Best (Cha1) 1 3 4 9 5 6 7 2Worst (Cha4) 9 6 7 1 3 2 4 5

LM Best (Cha1) 1 2 4 9 3 6 5 3Worst (Cha4) 9 5 3 1 5 2 9 7

TM Best (Cha2) 3 1 4 5 6 3 9 7Worst (Cha7) 2 9 5 3 4 6 1 3

PE Best (Cha6) 2 4 5 3 7 1 6 9Worst (Cha8) 7 6 3 4 2 9 3 1

ME Best (Cha3) 3 6 1 3 5 4 9 2Worst (Cha7) 6 3 9 7 2 3 1 6

Table 7The weights of eight challenges for 6 experts using BWM.

Challenges CEO SCM LM TM PE ME

Cha1 0.0616 0.3237 0.2855 0.1305 0.2011 0.1243Cha2 0.3542 0.1360 0.1947 0.3664 0.1006 0.0621Cha3 0.1437 0.1020 0.0973 0.1074 0.0805 0.3080Cha4 0.0719 0.0266 0.0202 0.0859 0.1341 0.1243Cha5 0.1078 0.0816 0.1298 0.0716 0.0575 0.0746Cha6 0.0862 0.0680 0.0649 0.1432 0.3305 0.0932Cha7 0.0308 0.0583 0.0779 0.0337 0.0670 0.0270Cha8 0.1437 0.2040 0.1298 0.0614 0.0287 0.1864

0.0770 0.0842 0.1038 0.0632 0.0718 0.0648

Table 8Final rankings obtained via the BWM.

Challenges to CE Average weight Rank

Lack of technological advancement (Cha1) 0.1878 2Lack of financial supports from authorities (Cha2) 0.2023 1Absent of strong legislation towards CE (Cha3) 0.1398 3Lack of reverse logistics facility (Cha4) 0.0772 7Lack of communication framework (Cha5) 0.0871 6Lack of awareness of CE (Cha6) 0.1310 4Lack of pressure from social community (Cha7) 0.0491 8Lack of long term strategic goals (Cha8) 0.1257 5

Fig. 2. Weights of challenges to CE practices.

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waste in eco-friendly production systems (Pringle et al., 2016;Vermunt et al., 2019; van Buren et al., 2016). Hence, it is clearfrom the discussion that financial support would help leather in-dustry to develop eco-friendly production systems, one of themajor goals of the CE strategy.

Next, the “lack of technological advancement (Cha1)” withweight of 0.1878, is assigned the second-highest weight in the finalrank. This result indicates that lack of technological advancement

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hampers the CE implementation process. Tannery effluent treat-ment needs advanced technological facility, which can minimizethe waste and protect the environment. Every year huge amount oftannery effluent is directly disposed to the river side which is themajor causes of environmental pollution. Therefore, technologicaladvancement optimizes the chemicals used in operations and re-cycles the effluents generated from chemical operations. To collectused products as well as waste generated in the manufacturingprocess, well organized supply chain framework is essential. Hence,the technological advancement is essential to implement CE prac-tices in the leather industry for recycling and reducing waste.Advanced technological facility can help to improve the existingproblem to implement CE practices. To implement CE practices,leather industry needs advanced technological framework fortannery effluent treatment. Moktadir et al. (2018b) argued that lackof cleaner technology is one of the main barriers for the imple-mentation of sustainable supply chains management practices inthe leather industry. Lopes de Sousa Jabbour et al. (2018) confirmedthat technological advancement is mandatory for the imple-mentation of CE practices in the supply chains. Another studyconducted by Pringle et al. (2016) in the context of leather domainand confirmed that current recycling technologies are not suitablefor processing waste associated with the production of finishedleather and leather products. Therefore, decision-makers mustestablish a research and development section within the leatherindustry for the innovation of cleaner technologies to fulfill thecurrent demand for the minimization of waste and the reuse ofwaste and chemicals.

“Absence of strong legislation toward CE (Cha3)”, with weight of0.1398, is identified as the third major challenge to CE imple-mentation. Leather industry is producing finished leather, withoutconsidering any environmental issues as well as worker safety.During the tannery operations, workers handle the chemicalwithout safety precautions. Also, during the leather processing,leather industry does not consider any treatment facility for tan-nery discharge. It is matter of sorrow that currently, no stronglegislation is available for CE practices in the context of Bangladeshileather sector. Strong legislationwill compel the leather industry toimplement CE practices. It can force manufacturer to considerenvironmental issues as well as pollution control facility. A study byMoktadir et al. (2018c) urged that strong legislation can force theleather industry to implement sustainable manufacturing practiceswhich will help to obtain circular economy goals. Another study byMoktadir et al. (2018b) showed that lack of strong legislation in thedeveloping countries such as Bangladesh act as crucial barriers forleather industry to implement sustainable supply chain manage-ment practices. A couple of other works conducted on otherdomain and stated that strong legislative system helps to providelegal protection for the development of a CE (Li and Yu, 2011;Veenstra et al., 2010). Veenstra et al. (2010) showed the legisla-tion for the waste of electrical and electronic equipment in thecontext of CE practices of China. Authors mentioned that Chinaadopted ‘CE Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China’ forthe circular economy practices in the year 2009. It is clear from theliterature that strong legislation may act as a strong influentialdriver for the implementation of CE practices.

“Lack of awareness of CE (Cha6)”, with the weight of 0.1310, isthe fourth major challenge to the implementation of CE practices.Based on the findings, both of manufacturers and customers are notwell aware on CE practices. Maximum people of Bangladesh do notconsider green products during selling and buying process, as theyare not knowledgeable on CE issues. Manufacturers always try tominimize the production cost. Therefore, currently, leather manu-facturer of Bangladesh are omitting to produces green products.Awareness which comes from the customer may force the

manufacturer to produce green products, as it is a basic require-ment of CE practices. Additionally, accurate knowledge of CEpractices can motivate decision-makers to implement CE practicesin the leather sector, which is also supported by Moktadir et al.(2018c). Malek and Desai (2019) showed that lack of knowledgeand training program is the critical barriers for Indian automobilesector towards implementing sustainable manufacturing practices.In the perspective of leather industry, Moktadir et al. (2018b)evaluated the barriers of sustainable supply chain managementimplementation andmentioned that lack of awareness is the causalbarrier and it is the big challenges in Bangladesh for the practicestowards CE implementation. Pringle et al. (2016) demonstrated thechallenges in attaining circular economy within leather recyclingcontext of European countries, and ignored to take these challengesin the evaluation process. Jacobi and Bensen (2011) mentioned thatlack of awareness of society is the obstacle for achieving sustain-ability in Brazil. Lieder and Rashid (2016) demonstrated the existingliterature on CE and confirmed that societal awareness is the crucialdriving fuel for transition of linear to circular economy, as customeris an integral part of a CE. Various researches on CE in the context ofothers domain and other countries confirmed that awareness is theimperative for CE implementation. As an example, Liu and Bai(2014) conducted research on impact of customer awareness inCE practices in the china manufacturing firms context and statedthat “a striking "gap" existed between a firm’s awareness and itsactual behavior in developing a circular economy”; Liu et al. (2009)examined the public awareness and performance for promoting CEin China and confirmed that China residents have poor under-standing and a limited awareness about the CE program. It can bestated from the existing literature that customers’ awareness forpromoting CE can act as the crucial factor. In this regard, appro-priate training and knowledge sharing concerning CE issues canenhance the current practices in the industry.

Next, “lack of long-term strategic goals (Cha8)” with weight of0.1257, is assigned the fifth position in the ranking. Developedcountries are now more aware on sustainable development. Theyare formulating long-term strategic goals for achieving sustainabledevelopment goals in industrial sector. Bangladesh is a developingcountry and the absence of long-term strategic goals in the leatherindustry is the crucial barriers for CE implementation, as CE needslong-term strategic plan. Without proper long-term strategic plan,it is impossible to achieve the sustainable development goals.Leather industry faces huge trouble in this regards and currentexport downgrades in theworldmarket. The leathermanufacturersare still long way from long-term strategic goals. Long-term stra-tegic goals can help to motivate industrial decision-makers toimplement CE practices. CE practices through environmentallyfriendly practices, such as reverse logistics as well as reuse, recycle,and reduction of waste, can help achieve sustainable businessgrowth in the long-term. CE practices protect the environment byminimizing waste. Therefore, long-term strategic goals are neces-sary to achieve benefits in supply chain networks. According toMoktadir et al. (2018a), long-term strategic goal may act as crucialchallenges to industry 4.0 implementation in the leather domain.Hanmin (2006) showed the importance of strategic goals for sus-tainable manufacturing in the context of CE. Korhonen (2004) gavean importance of strategic plan for industrial ecology in the contextof CE. Therefore, it is concluded that leather industry needs long-term strategic goals to implement CE practices, to ensure themanufacturing practices towards achieving sustainability.

“Lack of communication platform (Cha5)” is assigned the sixthposition in the final ranking. A strong communication frameworkcan facilitate the task of smoothening the production system in theleather industry, and such a framework is required to integrate theentire manufacturing system, reducing waste and material

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consumption. Currently, leather manufacturers don’t consider anycommunication platform, including enterprise resource planning(ERP) software for integration of supply chain activities. CE imple-mentation needs strong communication platform for maintaininggood connection among supplier to manufacturer to consumers.Therefore, leather industry needs to think about communicationplatform for successfully implementation of CE practices. Severalresearchers emphasis on communication platform for the suc-cessfully implementation of CE practices. For example, Lopes deSousa Jabbour et al. (2018) demonstrated the roadmap andresearch agenda for industry 4.0 and CE for the sustainable oper-ations, and showed that communication platform is the key drivingfuel for CE implementation. Kalmykova et al. (2018) showed theimportance of communication platform for CE practices. So,communication platform is a key element for the CE practices, butthe matter of sorrow that leather industry in the context ofBangladesh faces such challenges for the CE implementation.

“Lack of reverse logistics facility (Cha4)” is assigned in seventhposition. Reverse logistics facility can help to achieve resourceoptimization through waste minimization in supply chains. Inaddition, implementation of CE practices with reverse logistics fa-cility is essential to compete with the global market. Leatherproducts need a good network of reverse supply chains, wheremanufacturer can take back the waste products as well as usedproducts for 4R policies. Reverse logistics facility may emphasizethe tannery and leather goods industry to implement CE practices.Reverse logistics facility is the prerequisite for the CE practices,which is confirmed by previous literature (Adams et al., 2017; vanBuren et al., 2016; Zeqiang and Wenming, 2006; Esposito et al.,2018). Lopes de Sousa Jabbour et al. (2018) mentioned that reverselogistics can drive the manufacturing firms to develop industry 4.0policies towards CE.

The final challenge in the final ranking is “lack of pressure fromsocial community (Cha7), with the weight of 0.0491.” Society canact as a pivotal driving force for the implementation of CE practicesin the leather industry by motivating decision-makers to redesignthe current manufacturing framework. In Bangladesh, the socialcommunity is not aware on CE practices. If they aware on CEpractices, it can be a great help for the successfully implementationof CE practices across the leather processing supply chains.Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) confirmed the importance of societalpressure for CE practices, for the sustainable development ofmanufacturing firms. Moktadir et al. (2018a, b) confirmed that so-cietal pressure may act as a driving fuel for sustainable develop-ment of leather sector in Bangladesh.

Through the study findings, practitioners and decision-makerscan build a resilient business strategy to overcome challenges andcope up with the world market. Financial support from the au-thorities may help initiate CE practices in supply chains. Accord-ingly, decision-makers may specifically focus on improving currentpractices by formulating proactive strategies. The specific mana-gerial implications of this study based on the research findings areas follows:

(1) Expanding financial facility for CE practices: Based on the re-sults of this study, lack of financial supports from authoritiesis the most critical challenge in the leather industry ofBangladesh specifically, and developing countries in general.In order to deal with this issue, Industrial managers fromleather industry of Bangladesh could be linked with thegovernment or private organizations in order to receivemorefinancial support for the implementation of CE practices.Implementation of CE practices in supply chains requiresconsiderable investment and budget expansion. Authoritiesshould expand financial facility for the implementation of CE

practices, which can help the leather industry to develop asustainable business policy.

(2) Establishing technological facility for the initiation of CE prac-tices: lack of technological advancement is the second mostcritical challenge in the final ranking. To deal with thischallenge, Industrial managers of leather industry inBangladesh in specific and other developing nations in gen-eral, might try to develop some effective technological fa-cilities and attempt to upgrade their technology level inorder to better implement CE in their leather supply chains.Leather supply chains involve multiple chemical and me-chanical operations. Technological advancement may help tominimize waste and smoothen the CE implementation pro-cess. Decision-makers and practitioners should focus ontechnological advancement to initiate CE practices.

(3) Developing legislation for CE implementation: According to thefinal result, absent of strong legislation towards CE rankedthe third most critical challenge. Industrial managers ofleather manufacturing companies in Bangladesh could beconnected with authorities and government in order todevelop some efficient codes and regulations for imple-menting CE in the leather supply chains. A strong legislationfacility is essential to compel practitioners and decision-makers to implement CE practices for environmental pro-tection, especially in the leather industry in Bangladesh.

(4) Expanding knowledge of CE: Lack of awareness of CE is in thefourth place in the final ranking list. This challenge seems notto be very important from the managers of Bangladeshleather industry point of view. However, leather industrymanagers in Bangladesh and other developing nations couldtry to understand and employ well this concept throughlinkagewith diverse research institutions and environmentalconservation organizations in developed countries. More-over, they can be aware of the potential benefits they canachieve through implementation of this concept in theircompany. Additionally, authorities should initiate programsfor expanding knowledge of CE. Most consumers and man-ufactures lack knowledge about the CE concept. Accurateknowledge of the CE concept is crucial to sustain in theworldmarket.

(5) Developing long-term strategic goals: lack of long-term stra-tegic goals is in the fifth place in the final ranking. Althoughthis challenge is placed in the middle in the final ranking listand it is not the most critical one, however industrial man-agers from leather industry in Bangladesh as well as otherleather companies in developing countries can attempt toestablish practical long-term objectives and strategic policieswhich can broadly take into consideration implementationof CE as well as other sustainable initiatives in their leathersupply chains to attain sustainable development. Addition-ally, industrial decision-makers should forecast the up-coming global trends and develop long-term strategic goalsfor the initiation of CE practices.

6. Conclusions

Up to now, several researchers have tried to investigate circulareconomy practices from variety of contexts and categories (e.g.Bendikiene et al., 2019; Gigli et al., 2019; Sassanelli et al., 2019;Gusmerotti et al., 2019). This work proposes a decision frame-work for evaluating the challenges to CE practices in the leatherindustry in Bangladesh. This research is the first attempt to deter-mine the challenges to the implementation of CE practices in theleather industry, and to emphasize the importance of CE practices.

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Initially, several potential challenges to CE practices were deter-mined according to literature review, and were subjected to severalrounds of reviews by leather industrial managers to develop theframework. The framework comprises eight challenges: “lack oftechnological advancement (Cha1)”; “lack of financial support fromauthorities (Cha2)”; “absence of strong legislation toward CE(Cha3)”; “lack of reverse logistics facility (Cha4)”; “lack ofcommunication framework (Cha5)”; “lack of awareness of CE(Cha6)”; “lack of pressure from social community (Cha7)”; and“lack of long-term strategic goals (Cha8).” The BWM, a novel MCDAmethod, was utilized for the first time in this area to assist man-agers in the evaluation process, as well as in the decision-makingand implementation processes. A sample comprising six expertsfrom the Bangladeshi leather industry was used in the evaluationprocess. CE is a key business strategy for manufacturing industriesto reduce waste. The implementation of CE practices is crucial forwaste minimization and environmental protection. CE imple-mentation in the leather industry would help to minimize waste.The findings of this study reveal that lack of financial support fromthe authorities poses amajor challenge to the implementation of CEpractices in leather supply chains. Lack of advanced technology isthe second major challenge. Advanced technology may assistdecision-makers in implementing CE strategies in supply chains.

However, this study has several limitations. These limitationsprovide directions for possible future studies on this topic. One ofthe main limitations of this study is that a limited number ofchallenges were considered to identify the impact of challenges onthe leather industry context. In addition, we did not investigate theinteractions and interdependencies among the identified chal-lenges to CE practices. Another limitation is that limited number ofexperts and companies participated and provided the data. Infuture, pilot study can be done to cross check and validate theexisting findings, using statistical analysis. We suggest that futureresearchers try to design policies based on the findings to help theleather industry in Bangladesh. Further, in future, researchers caninvestigate the interdependences among CE challenges to makepolicy for leather industry. Possible future studies could use theframework in other countries, industries and manufacturing sec-tors to assess the challenges to CE practices. Moreover, futurestudies could investigate the link between the challenges to seehow effective policies could make the most improvement. Also,future researches could investigate the link between private sectorand government to find solutions against these challenges. Inaddition, life cycle engineering may facilitate the implementationof CE practices. Clearly, this area of research requires more inves-tigation and managerial focus, particularly in emerging economiesand developing nations. This study is considered to help set thefoundation for further research on this subject.

Author contribution

Md. Abdul Moktadir proposed the research idea, collected datafrom case industry, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. HadiBadri Ahmadi improved the introduction and literature reviewsections, completed the researchmethodology, conclusion and caseapplication sections. Mrs. Razia Sultana helped to collect data,helped to analyze the data and writing the paper as well. Mrs.Fatema-Tuj-Zohra reviewed the manuscript and gave some inter-active suggestions at the initial stage. James Liou improved theliterature review, conclusion and revised the paper. Jafar Rezaeiimproved the quality of the whole paper.

Declaration of interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing

financial interests or personal relationships that could haveappeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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